Toronto 2015 CEO Saad Rafi is confident the Milton velodrome will be finished on time for a Games test event in October after a memo sent to councillors last month indicated the winter had caused weeks of construction delays.

Related Stories

The Pan/Parapan Am Games head was in Milton on Wednesday speaking to a group of local residents about next year’s international sporting spectacle and future prospects for the community’s soon-to-be-completed $60-million plus facility.

“I think it’s a tremendous legacy — this is a sporting town,” Rafi told the Champion.

The completion date for the Mattamy National Cycling Centre is slated for September 30, now only four weeks behind schedule after local councillors received a memo last month indicating it was double that.

Rafi said the Games committee has a senior vice-president on site almost weekly monitoring the facility’s construction progress.

“He can look at a site plan, and he can look at progress and say…’I feel confident you can get there end of September because of what needs to be done,” Rafi said. “It doesn’t leave as much time as one would like, but they could probably get this done on or before the end of September and we’ll play that by ear and stay in close contact.”

Games test event

Leaving little room for further delays, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) is scheduled to host the International Track Challenge October 16 to 19 as a test event for the Games. A few days following Cycling Canada will also use the velodrome for its national track championships.

The UCI competition is one of only two events which Toronto 2015 organizers will be testing for volunteer, transportation, accreditation, ticketing and overall Games readiness.

Sport tourism, Rafi said, is an estimated $3.7-billion industry in Canada and the Milton velodrome will provide “exposure to your town, location, tourism and most importantly perhaps is that athletes get to train at home.”

“You get a facility like this and you might be able to host four to six events — international, national, provincial — which bring people from all around the world and all over the country," he said.

The facility will lease offices to Cycling Canada, the Ontario Cycling Association and serve as the western hub for the Own the Podium-funded Canadian Sport Institute Ontario (CSIO).

At a Community Services Committee meeting Monday, Jennifer Reynolds told councillors that the CSIO will help support high-performance wrestlers. rowers and track and field athletes out of the velodrome facility.

“They’ll also make their services available to the Milton community for physiotherapy, nutrition counselling, biomechanics testing, any sort of services they provide...” the director of community services said.

Bauer heads up new Cycling Academy

Recently, the Town announced the hiring of the velodrome’s general manager Graeme McArthur, who comes to Milton after being manager of the Adelaide Superdrome in Australia — home to that country’s high performance cycling centre.

Former Canadian Olympian and Tour de France great Steve Bauer has been hired on a one-year contract to head up the Milton Cycling Academy.

“He’s working on developing a lot of our introductory programs and will also assist in doing some of our coach training for instructors that will be required for our cycling programs,” Reynolds said, noting that learn-to-ride classes for children all the way up to seniors would be offered after November 1, 2014.

The Town is counting on donated bikes all of sizes to make track cycling more accessible to those interested in trying out the sport for the first time.

“There’s lots of interest in having those donated so that people can come in and really try it without having to purchase any of that equipment,” Reynolds said.

Rafi noted the infield of the velodrome is a multi-use space that can be used for everything from basketball courts to large-scale concerts.

“You could do BMX bike events in there… you can have gala dinners, so it doesn’t always have to be a sporting event that goes in there,” Rafi said, pointing to the Legacy Fund Plan that will help fund the facility for the next 20 years and help “activate this facility and bring it to life.”

Legacy funds

Town council approved a Legacy Fund plan in November that will see $735,850 given annually to the Town over the next three years.

The $70-million Legacy Fund, however, has created a sore spot among some councillors who say Milton should be given representation on the committee which allocates monies to the velodrome and other Pan Am facilities in the years to come.

Rafi said Miltonians and the local government shouldn’t be concerned that they’ll be without a voice after the Games are over.

“The needs of the facility will be driven by the Town of Milton because it’s your facility so that must be taken into consideration in the operational planning by the committee members,” Rafi said.